The Irrational Exuberance of Fracking

August 30, 2012

In recent months we’ve seen a spate of assertions that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called “new technologies” that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of “unconventional” oil. “Don’t worry, drive on,” we’re told.

We can fall for the oil industry hype and keep ourselves chained to a resource that’s depleting and comes with ever increasing economic and environmental costs, or we can recognize that the days of cheap and abundant oil (not to mention coal and natural gas) are over.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle are parroting the hype, claiming — in Obama’s case — that unconventional oil can play a key role in an “all of the above” energy strategy and — in Romney’s — that increased production of tight oil and tar sands can make North America energy independent by the end of his second term.

As usual, they missed the a major point that should always be part of the energy debate: climate change. How can we honestly argue the pros and cons of any energy source without considering carbon emissions. We have probably missed the opportunity to limit warming to 2 degrees C. We need to get our emissions down to zero as soon as possible.

The last half of this Post Carbon Institute video is freaking scary. However, I’ve seen in another greenman video that GDP decoupled from energy use a while back, so if you take that into account when watching, then maybe it’s a tad less scary, but still pretty scary….

That was a wonderful video. Thank you for sharing.
And although I agree that the message is scary, I believe it is also optimistic. I think the world will be a better place once we’ve moved away from fossil fuels. It’s the transition that’s going to be a b#tch!

Yes, thanks from me too. This video will work well in a post I am already in the process of writing on the subject of our determination to ignore the reality of the second law of thermodynamics and/or the concept of entropy.

Well, it scared me so bad, that I started researching EROEI trajectories for wind and renewables last night. The good news is wind’s EROEI will keep getting better and better (presently) due to simple physics:

“With wind energy, bigger is better for energy return. Energy return increases with the square of rotor diameter. If the rotor is twice as big, it produces four times the power. Turbine size has been increasing for many years, which is the key reason for the steep rise in EROEI.”

The question isn’t WHETHER transition will happen. It will happen, it’s just a matter of when. The EROEI of all renewables except hydro is quite low when compared to oil produced in the 1950s, and we’ve built an entire economy, way of life, and worldview based on this source. We see the immediate past, and the logical conclusion when ignoring depletion is that that is what will continue into the future.

But it’s done, and the depletion rates are going to -eventually- wake us all up to the reality of the future. The transition to alternatives isn’t an option if we want to continue civilization in any form as we know it – it’s a necessity. Even with this transition, we’ll have to figure out how to do much more with less energy-wise.

I’m looking into scythes. Seriously. They’re far more effective than wire trimmers, they don’t have fuel costs, and you get a nice workout to boot.